oncluding, "the thing'll wabble a good deal,
specially if it's as windy as this, and it won't be easy to work on, but
it won't fall if we make everything fast."

Pete had listened pretty closely at first, but now Bannon noticed that
his attention seemed to be wandering to a point a few inches above
Bannon's head. He was about to ask what was the matter when he found
out. It was windier on that particular wharf than anywhere else in the
Calumet flats, and the hat he had on was not built for that sort of
weather. It was perfectly rigid, and not at all accommodated to the
shape of Bannon's head. So, very naturally, it blew off, rolled around
among their feet for a moment, and then dropped into the river between
the wharf and the tug.

Bannon was up on the spouting house, helping make fast the cable end
when a workman brought the hat back to him. Somebody on the tug had
fished it out with a trolling line. But the hat was well past
resuscitation. It had been thoroughly drowned, and it seemed to know it.

"Take that to the office," said Bannon. "Have Vogel wrap it up just as
it is and ship it to Mr. Brown. I'll dictate a letter to go with it by
and by."

For all Bannon's foresight, there threatened to be a hitch in the work
on the gallery. The day shift was on again, and twenty-four of Bannon's
forty-eight hours were spent, when he happened to say to a man:--

"Never mind that now, but be sure you fix it to-morrow."

"To-morrow?" the man repeated. "We ain't going to work to-morrow, are
we?"

Bannon noticed that every man within hearing stopped work, waiting for
the answer. "Sure," he said. "Why not?"

There was some dissatisfied grumbling among them which he was quite at a
loss to understand until he caught the word "Christmas."

"Christmas!" he exclaimed, in perfectly honest astonishment. "Is
to-morrow Christmas?" He ran his hand through his stubby hair. "Boys,"
he said, "I'm sorry to have to ask it of you. But can't we put it off a
week? Look here. We need this day. Now, if you'll say Christmas is a
week from to-morrow, I'll give every man on the job a Christmas dinner
that you'll never forget; all you can eat and as much again, and you
bring your friends, if we work to-morrow and we have her full of wheat a
week from to-day. Does that go?"

It went, with a ripping cheer to boot; a cheer that was repeated here
and there all over the place as Bannon's offer was passed along.

So for another twenty-four hours the